Aldaric merely watched quietly as Captain Roa spoke. The servitors tracked up, and Aldaric recognized the bone white powerarmor of an Angels of Absolution brother, HIS powerarmor. He hardly identified it as his own from the outside, having never fully appreciated it from this angle. He noted its emptiness, a mere shell, as they all were. Was it symbolic?

The servitors themselves were sad cases, living machines, left without much mind of their own. They were failures, yet still they served. Aldaric briefly wondered at how much difference there was between one of them and an Astartes. At this point, there was not much else to do but to behold the moment, to take in and be one with the meaning in the ceremony.

Again, he did nothing but watch as the painting began. Black covered white, numbers erased, company colors, erased. Very much so it felt like the death of his former existence, and indeed it was, for from this day forward, he would willingly don his new black armor himself. He would encase himself in a new mission, a new identity, and become a merciless machine, an angel of death to the dragon enemies of the Emperor, the Tyranid, the Orcs, and other xenos. His sole focus would be this, and it no longer mattered where he was from, or even who his gene-father was. Nothing else mattered. 

A fatalistic stoicism dominated his gaze like a dark cloud as Aldaric suited up. It seemingly would have overtaken his persona ever afterward, had it not been for the look given him by his approaching new mentor, Brother Rathanael. The Consecrator's gaze locked onto his own, holding it, shattering it as Aldaric momentarily froze, the last fastening of his right Deathwatch pauldron held still in his hand. Aldaric blinked his biologic eye, finding himself suddenly freed from blindly following the path of the inevitable as he looked at his blood-brother in that ancient armor. Without words, a bond instantly formed between them, and he had been saved. 

Aldaric paused, strangely heartened. Inside he knew, he felt it. He could now go forward with appropriate mind. Like the Angels of Absolution from which he hailed, he had no need to look back. "Loyalty and honor, Brother Rathanael." He said, expecting no response in return, and then he finally secured his new pauldron as the last piece of his armor.